Absolutely, the battle for free speech is the most fundamental battle of our lives. Everything else is secondary, even bodily autonomy. They would never have been able to touch bodily autonomy without limiting free speech.

But we’re losing the battle. Elon Musk did not restore free speech on Twitter. He restored some previously banned accounts and he largely replaced permabans by “visibility filtering”. But new permabans are still happening too: notably, of “pro-Russian” accts in the context of the Ukraine war.

See my article below. I’m forced to link my stack, rather than the article directly, since otherwise Substack will not generate a preview.

I hope Substack will hold the line on free speech, but I have serious doubts. Hamish McKenzie talks about “civil discourse” and “good speech norms”. Who’s to say what those are? Trying to impose the latter will put Substack on the slippery slope to censoring anything and everything…